Public Citizen believes that a notice issued by the Environmental Protection Agency about regulating greenhouse gases will do nothing to curb global warming. Instead of issuing a rule, the Bush Administration has chosen to delay the matter by seeking public comment, thereby ensuring the issue will not be dealt with until a new Administration comes to town. Unfortunately, since our planet is heating up, with disastrous consequences, we don’t have time to waste. The scientific consensus suggests that action should be swift, and even the U.S. Supreme Court, in a strongly-worded decision issued in April 2007, resolved the issue of whether the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The EPA should have responded properly, but it hasn’t seen fit to do so. You can thank the Bush Administration for the agency’s failure to act.

The EPA’s notice has been heavily edited in an interagency review and is accompanied by letters from representatives of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as the Secretaries of Transportation, Commerce, Agriculture and Energy. It’s shocking that the letters express misgivings about regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, erroneously saying that it is an ill-suited means of combating climate change. Only an Administration that considers itself above the law would allow the EPA to take such a position.

Public Citizen says it has repeatedly seen that leaving industry to regulate itself does not advance public health and safety. That’s absolutely correct and the interference of the White House in this process is unconscionable. The President’s decision to let the clock run out, rather than take action during his tenure in office, is a national disgrace. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the American people have become accustomed to during the Bush years.